This was The Baroness Seitzinger's table for Saturday's dinner; it was a pleasent setting, a friendly group of guests, and the view from her balconey a stunning visual of the smoke-filled skies of a state slowly burning from top to bottom. Earlier in the day Mrs. Stuyvesant-Fish rang us up asking for company as she started an early cocktail hour. "She's got to go to Las Vegas tomorrow," I warned Mr. Astor, "and, she's probably frisky." So off to Tommy Decker's arms we went to comfort Mrs. S-F and enjoy Tommy's collection of I Love Lucy shows. Frisky was not the way to put it--at least in polite society--and she just couldn't keep her gloved hands off of Mr. A. (I've just learned to live with this.)


Hours later (and to a point where spending more time most likely would have had Mrs. S-F stripping) we came home and made a decision that would haunt me later. Would we eat or nap? So far we had consumed only some chips at Twist, but the knowledge of Seitzinger's pending dinner and all the preparations that had gone into it, seemed to make the nap make sense. We arrived promptly at 8 and by 8:01 had cocktails in hand. There was a delay in the cooking of a roast that was either 7 lbs. or 7 feet (I can't remember; it could have been a whole cow). As my stomach begged for food, cocktail after cocktail tried to soothe it; I hovered near the kitchen hoping to catch the food planner basting the beast. (I was ready to chew off a corner of anything baking in that stove, but no luck.) "Have another cocktail, Alexis." Over and over we toasted our gracious host until I felt the inevitable: I was going to sink through the floorboards or collapse on the bed. Being married gives you a guardian of sorts and Leopoldo wisely took me home. No din-din for me that night.


The next day we prepared for Pimpernel's "Daiquiri Brunch", but he is so well-known for his lavish lunches that I had waved off the possibility of going hungry for long. As soon as we arrived a daiquiri was thrust in our hands. Fresh strawberries and peaches were in abundance, but that was the only food I could see; the horror was real: we were meeting to test all the daiquiris he was planning for a new bar. (Within a hour I was ready to eat Mr. Astor's Prada shoes if only he would take them off.) We survived on some wild berries until we made it to Twist's Sunday.

I've taken to my bed today, fending off the first signs of malnutrition and my head feels like a Panzer tank ran over it. I'm also dusting off an old idea I once had of making an outfit of edible buttons; of course, if pagoda sleeves would just come back I could hide a mini-bagel in each one.